We are seeking proposals for essays to be included in a proposed volume on ‘Queens in Waiting’ to be submitted to the Queenship and Power series. The collection seeks to explore the processes of becoming or attempting (successfully or not) to become queen through a collection of case studies of individual women or comparative groupings of women. Potential topics could include but are not limited to:

· Assessing and negotiating ‘worthy’ marriages for royal women/ potential brides for a king or heir to the throne.

· Attempts of non-royal women (or their families) to marry into the succession

· Careers of women who became or attempted to become queen serving at court

· Precedence at court between Queens past, present and future (for example relations between queens and their mothers or daughters-in-law, or scenarios where a long-reigning monarch has several generations of potential future Queens in line for the throne)

· Expectations of/from a future queen – ‘suitability’ for queenship

· Agency (or not) of individual women in becoming Queen through marriage or through assertion of their own succession rights etc.

· Multiple attempts by the same woman to become Queen of the same or different realms

· Understandings of Queenship as a vocation or destiny

· ‘Pretender’ Queens, exiled Queens

· Role of the next, future or expected queen in absence of an incumbent (eg after death of a Queen Consort)

Proposals which cover political, ceremonial and/or representational aspects of any of these topics will be considered and we are open to essays considering different cultural, geographical or chronological contexts.

Proposals of 350-500 words along with a brief CV should be sent to Sarah Betts and Chloë McKenzie at queensinwaiting2018@gmail.com by 15th November 2018.